Always Will Be

Chapter 4

As Gyutaro laid slumbering beside his sister, he had another dream.

Like last time, he was walking through Rashomon. Since his feet now moved on their own, he assumed he wasn't in control of his actions this time either. As he took a glance down at himself he confirmed that he was in fact a human little boy again. The passerby towns people all glaring at him, mumbling insults under their breath as he walked. Nothing he wasn't used to.

Looking out to the houses that lined either side of him, he knew where he was. He must be heading to Yuna's house. Well, her mother's house. Strange, Yuna hated this place. Would she actually be here?

As he drew closer, a flying clay pot that came out the open front door before smashing to bits in the street confirmed his suspicion. She must be there. At the sound of her mother screaming obscenities he ran to the scene.

He stopped just in front of the open door, he could see that Yuna had squished herself underneath a small table to hide from her rampaging mother. Her little finger rising up to her lips to silently hush her friend, a pleading and fear-stricken look in her eyes.

"Come out here NOW! I know you're here I can smell you, you disgusting little shit!" Her mother seethed, bandages covering the upper half of the woman's face as she struggled and fumbled; bumping into things in search of her loathed daughter. The sunlight that filtered into the dirty disheveled house gleamed off the knife she held in her hand.

That's right—he remembered now—Yuna's mother was blind. Like his own mother, the woman was a prostitute. But her profession had come to a screeching halt the day she had spilled tea she was serving on a samurai customer. He slashed her face as compensation for his nice clothes she ruined; blinding her for life in the process. Naturally, she'd been sent here to Rashomon to die since she was no longer beautiful. But yet somehow along the way, Yuna had been conceived and miraculously survived both the womb and infancy—much like himself.

"How dare you come into my house!! Come to steal from me have you?! I may be blind, but I can hear what everyone says about you, you dig around in people's garbage like a filthy FUCKING RAT! As if being cursed with a worthless bastard like you wasn't damning enough. How pathetic you are, scrounging on TRASH just to live and for what?! A grotty little piece of shit is all you'll ever be! You should be ashamed of the life I was forced to give you, why won't you just fucking DIE already?! When I find you, I'll be sure I'm rid of you this time!" She threatened venomously, only making Yuna cower and wince silently from under the table as tears brimmed her shut eyes.

Gyutaro felt it in the way his muscles tensed that his former self must have been frightened in this moment as well; but that didn't stop him from saving his Yuna.

Grabbing a piece of the broken pot the miserable woman had thrown outside, he chucked it at the opposite corner of the house from Yuna. The woman grinned wickedly, believing to have found her daughter's hiding place, she pounced on the corner she had been fooled into.

Not wasting a second, Gyutaro charged inside, grabbing hold of Yuna's wrist to drag her back to safety outside. But the blind woman's hearing had grown most acute from her loss of vision. Hearing their scurrying little footsteps she staggered out the front door after them. "COME BACK HERE YOU LITTLE-" She shouted before tripping over the pot she had broken.

Yuna didn't bother to look back at her screaming and thrashing mother on the ground as the two dashed through the streets.

Once far enough away, the duo stopped to catch their breath. "Thanks Gyu-Chan, I-" She got out before Gyutaro cut her off.

"Why would you go there?"

Yuna's smile melted away at his tone, she knew he was angry. "Well, I was just so hungry...and I wanted to see if she had anything I could-" She tried to answer back meekly.